Now That’s What I Can Weekender, Volume Whatever

Hey! Don’t get so wrapped up (har, har) in your holiday shopping that you forget to read Weekender! Here are some tidbits from tomorrow’s section to tempt you. Or go online and find the entire articles right now.

Quotes

 “We do a filthy version of the show. There’s nobody out there, so you can really vent. Someday, when we don’t care anymore, we ought to invite the public in and end our career.” — Jaston Williams, on their rehearsals these days for “A Tuna Christmas,” which they’ve been performing for almost 20 years.

 ” ‘National Treasure: Book of Secrets’ has without a doubt the most absurd and fevered plot since, oh, say, ‘National Treasure’ (2004).” — from Roger Ebert’s review.

A “Cox” issue

Speaking of Ebert, it figures that a movie with “Hard” and “Cox” in the title would have penis issues. Specifically, there’s a scene in “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” the spoof of cliches in musical bios, in which a stray member has a cameo in a corner of an orgy scene. All the general nudeness is going on while addled rock star Dewey (John C. Reilly) is talking on the phone while sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed. Ebert wrote:

“No explanation about why, or to whom it belongs to, or what happens to it. Just a penis. I think this just about establishes a standard for gratuitous nudity. Speculate as I will, I cannot imagine why it’s in the film. Did the cinematographer look through his viewfinder and say, ‘Jake (director Jake Kasdan), the upper right corner could use a penis’?”

Well, Kasdan and Reilly answered that very question in their interview on NPR a couple of weeks ago. In fact, they spent five minutes discussing the penis scene on “Fresh Air” with host Terri Gross, who had broached the subject. Kasdan says he was inspired by “Stoned,” a vintage documentary of the Rolling Stones that includes lots of full frontal nudity of the band members. Reilly said it was to point out that at this point in Dewey’s career, he “had become so decadent that it doesn’t faze him one bit … that this bizarre, decadent lifestyle seems normal.”

Before he and Paul O’Neill formed Trans-Siberian Orchestra, guitarist Al Pitrelli played in Megadeth and Alice Cooper’s band. He was also in the metal band Savatage with O’Neill and once did temp work in Blue Oyster Cult, according to the All Music Guide. And he actually played with Michael Bolton back in the ’80s, when Bolton had hair and was into metal.